Victim and Villain
by Pumpkinator
Summary: My series of drabbles, ongoing.
1. The Ones We Create

Drabble: The Ones We Create

Rating: G Comicverse   
Disclaimer: V4V belongs to Moore, Lloyd, and WB   
Dr. Delia Surridge thinks about the man in Room 5.

VVVVV

"There's a devil in that man."

Dr. Delia Surridge never has anything to say to that kind of nonsense, so she keeps quiet. In her hands she's holding her most recent notes on the cases in the medical compound, and as always, the ones from Room Five are on the top. Dr. Surridge is quickly losing hope for the other four, but Five is just as quickly becoming the star of the show.

"You don't believe me?" asks the man across the table from her. Dr. Surridge wonders what he's doing here; they're not close, not like he and commander Prothero are close. She's quite certain he knows she loathes him, although she's practiced at keeping it buried under a veneer of professional coolness. She has no use for his type at all and she knows no one else here does either. She knows he's here for no other reason than to excuse the cheque he receives every month. But she keeps quiet.

"I tell you, no human being can look at you like that," the man continues, leaning forward. "There's an evil thing residing in him. I can't tell you how thankful to God I am that he's safely under lock and key."

But, Dr. Surridge thinks, you'd know evil. I know what you do after hours, when you're walking the yard. Not leading a prayer circle. Not that it matters to me at all. You leave my cases alone, and you can do what you like with the rest.

Five does have a way of looking at you, though, she thinks. You could shrivel up and blow away under his gaze if you weren't strong enough. No wonder the padre is so scared of him.

She thinks about letting him know about her plans to let Five have a patch of dirt outside in the yard to plant some roses and vegetables. Just to upset him. It was an odd request, but that was part of why she can't refuse. It's a chance for some kind of reaction, something to reveal what's going on in that damaged mind of his. It isn't what they set out to do at all, but then the doctor isn't quite sure what their goal used to be anymore.

It is disconcerting, that Five had broken three days of total silence with a straightforward request for a garden. Perhaps she should be suspicious. No, that's the Bishop's paranoia leaking onto her. There are barbed wire fences and towers and men with rifles. They are safe.

She'll watch him very carefully over the next few months. There are many things he can teach her, even if he doesn't know it. There are answers there, there is a pattern to be revealed, if she only looks closely enough.

And there are no devils, except the human kind. The kind sitting across the table from her. But there are no devils in Room Five, just a man who's lost his mind, and a most fascinating study of dementia. A long time ago people thought that the mentally ill were possessed by demons, but we're past that now. We know there are no devils except the ones we create.


	2. They're All Gone

Drabble: They're All Gone

Rating: G  
Mostly comicverse/sort of movieverse  
Disclaimer: V4V belongs to Moore, Lloyd, and WB   
V thinks about the women in his life.

VVVVV

They've all left me, every last one, except for you. It seems some kind of unbreakable pattern that they should leave. A natural order, the way things are intended to be.

What other explanation is there? Not coincidence. You know me well enough to know I put no stock in randomness. The word "random" suggests isolation, influenced by and influencing nothing. But we know that isn't true, don't we? Nothing exists alone. Everything that happens, has happened, will happen, affects and is affected by a dozen, a hundred, a million other things, everything that is and was and will be. It is all connected. And most of the time, I can see how. It is a gift, I suppose. It has let me do more than should have been possible. It has helped me change the world.

But my knowledge of the grand pattern is not complete. Oh, they all think it is, and that's part of the illusion. It can only help me to be thought of as all-seeing. They assume that wherever they are, I have already been, and in most cases they're correct. But they say that every great master has a puzzle he can't solve. I have several.

I want to know why, and I'm afraid to know why. Why everyone who meant anything to me has been snatched away. No, that's not true. Valerie was not snatched away from me. I never had her. She was gone before I even read her letter. It was her ghost that spoke to me and raised me from the dead, not her lips or her hand. I never had her.

And Justice? She walked away from me under her own power. Not uninfluenced, but by her own choice nonetheless. To _him_. Walked right into his arms, the one who had hurt her so badly. I can't imagine what kind of horrid sickness has seized her. She must be ill, to be so loyal to such a despicable abuser.

And then, Evey. Sweet Eve. God help me, I still love her. Not as I love Valerie, and not as I used to love Justice, not at all. It was different, but in the end it makes no difference. As they left me, so did she. In the end I have no one to blame but myself. I was the one who helped her discover her wings, who am I to deny her flight? I was the one who helped her open the door to her cage, and I have no right to weep because she chose to walk out. And that was our whole point, wasn't it? To teach her to reject her cage, because it could not hold her unless she allowed it to hold her. And my love is only another cage. I know this better than anyone, except you, perhaps. But it does not ease pain to know that things are as they should be. Not at all.

They're all gone but you, my sweet Anarchy. I love you, and I need you. Please don't leave me.


End file.
